She was in Westharbor, sitting at the kitchen table of a house she didn't quite recognize. It had a large fireplace, much like the one at Daeghun's farmhouse. The hearth was cold, but she could see from the leaves outside and smell from the air that blew through the open door that it was summertime. The windows had beautiful curtains, embroidered with blue morning glories against a the white cloth. She stood, and went to the window. Outside, she saw a village reborn. It was not the Westharbor of her childhood, nor was it the Westharbor she had last seen, the houses burnt or abandoned, the air reeking of the demonic. What houses were left had been repaired, the ones that had been damaged had been torn down and replaced with new ones, built in the style of their predecessors.
She walked out the front door, the smell of the swamp at once fetid and comforting assailing her nostrils.
"Addie!" she heard a familiar voice, "Good, you're up from your nap!"
She turned to see Bevil Starling, her old friend, walking up the path to the house, a fishing pole over one shoulder and a bucket in his hand. If the sounds from the bucket were to be believed it was full of wriggling catfish from the river, just waiting to be killed, gutted, dredged in flour and fried in butter. Behind him trailed two... no... three little children. The eldest was Bevil's spit and image, probably six or seven years old, the next a year or two younger, and the smallest was toddling along behind, two fingers in her mouth.
Is this a dream? She thought, Or was before a dream?
"Mama!" the littlest child piped up. She started running at the frenetic pace that little children could run at. Addie had always wondered how something that had just learned to use its legs could move so fast. The little girl ran, right past Addie, tripped, somersaulted in the damp grass, got right back up and ran past to the house behind her, where another familiar face was standing.
Good gods, I've never seen Katriona in a dress before, Addie thought, but there she was. Her blond hair was tied back in a kerchief, her burly blacksmith's arms covered by a yellow cotton dress. She picked the toddler up and swung her around, and then perched her on her shoulder.
"Don't worry Addie, yours are coming," Bevil said. He walked up to Katriona and planted a kiss firmly on her mouth. She smiled. Bevil was a good six and a half feet tall, and was probably the only man who could make Katriona, who stood at six feet herself, look small and dainty.
"Mine?" Addie asked, thoroughly confused.
"There they are!"
She followed Bevil's extended finger to where two more figures were coming over the rise. She could see from the silhouette who it wasn't, who she half hoped it would be, but she didn't realize who it was until he came close enough that she could see the bluish cast of his skin, the silver of his hair. She stared incredulously, and even more incredulously when she saw that the second figure, a little girl, black-haired and blue-skinned, maybe five years old, holding onto his hand.
"Mama!" the girl squealed, and let go of Gann's hand to fly into Adahni's arms. She instinctively put her arms around her so she didn't fall, and ran a hand through the girl's hair, finding it to be the same texture as her own. She opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but could only open and close it several times, much like the catfish in the bucket.
"Well hello my lemming," Gann said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, "Our little Tasia caught a fish all by herself!"
"Gann... is this your doing?" she asked.
"What?" he asked, giving her a peck on the cheek, from which she had to try not to recoil. For all that this was a strange world she had woken up in, on the off chance that it was reality, she didn't want to disturb the little girl who was squirming happily in her arms, "The fish or the child? Though I suppose those two questions have the same..."
"Not in front of the children!" Katriona bellowed, "Come on now, inside, you all need to wash the swamp water off of your legs."
Adahni put down the girl, who scurried off after her companions.
"Gann," she whispered furiously, "Is this your idea of a joke?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," the hagspawn said, smiling guilelessly, "This one is your dream, I'm just a tourist right now."
"And who was supposed to play the role of husband in this bucolic little fantasy?" she asked.
The hagspawn only smiled mysteriously, "Well come on then, the fish aren't going to gut themselves."
"I want to wake up," Adahni said, "This is making me extremely uncomfortable."
"Addie, relax," Gann said, "It's just a part of your brain you haven't explored. Come on, let's see what happens." He took her by the hand, intertwining his fingers with hers, and walked with her into the house that, she assumed, belonged to her. She did begin to relax, to breathe the air, scented with the swamp air that she had grown up inhaling. This was a vivid dream and realistic, totally unlike the frenetic and disjointed visions that had plagued her sleep of late.
She walked into the kitchen.
"Where do you keep your knives?" Katriona asked her.
"My... what?"
"Gods, Addie, I make you a perfectly good set of knives for a wedding present and you don't know where you've put them?"
"In the cupboard to your left," Adahni asked, "I'm sorry, I'm a bit... addled from sleep."
"Well no wonder, considering all you've been through," the other woman said, "I'm sorry, I forget sometimes." Katriona paused, "We've all been through so much. It's hard to let it go, you know? And it's like we've been here forever, like you have been here forever. Do you want to talk about it?"
"Talk about what?" Adahni asked.
"It's been ten years today," Katriona said, "I know, nobody wanted to say anything to you, to remind you of all the... unpleasantness, especially since we've all seem to have settled into our lives. But I still dream of the orcs, Addie, and I can't imagine you aren't haunted as well."
"Ten years," Adahni said.
"Since you saved us all," Katriona said, "Yes, I know you hate hearing it like that, but it's what happened, and I'm not going to mince my words for your benefit. You're a grown woman, you can take it."
She looked at Katriona. Her blond hair had begun to go gray around the edges, and the lines at the edge if her eyes cut deeper. Of course, Adahni thought, She's over forty, if it's been ten years.
"And so much has changed. It's only been eight years since you came back, since you brought Gann with you. It's funny, how suspicious we all used to be of him."
"What do you mean?" Adahni asked.
"Well, you know..." Katriona said, "You weren't exactly known for your good taste in men. After your first marriage – yes, Bevil told me all about that – and your dalliance with the Betrayer of Crossroad. If that portal hadn't opened beneath the Mere and transported you to to Rask... Raskem... where is Gann from?"
"Rashemen," Adahni answered instinctively.
"Yes, there," Katriona said, "It's just hard to remember, seeing you, and your husband, and Tasia, all that time when we all thought you were dead. Though Bevil does say you have a penchant for disappearing for years at a time..."
Adahni nodded, numbly. Katriona had begun gutting fish with the same gusto she had previously reserved for gutting orcs. Is this what we all turn into in our middle age? Adahni thought. She went to a looking glass in the sitting room above the hearth. Ten years, she thought, I'm thirty-five, at least. She didn't look all that much older. Gann certainly didn't. Then again, she thought, he's only twenty-nine. And a hagspawn. She paused, and apparently, my husband. Part of her brain protested that Gann was not twenty-nine, Addie was only twenty-seven and Gann still barely a man... hagspawn.
That means I never saw Bishop again.
Her blood ran cold. She screwed her eyes shut, tried to conjure him into existence, to replace Gann, to have a brown-haired, tawny-skinned girl instead of the bluish Tasia.
"What is it, my lemming, have you found another gray hair?"
It hadn't worked. The arms that twined around her were blue. But they were strong, and sure, and held her close like they meant it.
"What kind of dream is this?" she asked.
"It's a pleasant one," Gann replied, "Relax. You're trying to be awake, Adahni, and you are not. There are so many versions of yourself. This is a possible one."
"This isn't me," she said, "I can't have children. That girl... whoever she is... she isn't mine."
"She is yours," Gann said, spinning her around in his arms, "And so am I. At least in this dream. I'm beginning to regret showing you how to control your dreams, it's left you completely impervious to the real beauty of it." He took her face in his hand, one cool blue palm of each of her brown cheeks, and looked into her eyes, "All worlds are possible in here," he said, tapping the side of her head softly. He looked around him. The room was getting more detailed by the minute. The looking glass, which had only been a ragged hunk of mirror, was now framed in fine wood. She glanced at the hearth, and saw that it now had a fine oaken mantle, atop of which were minature oil paintings of herself, and of Gann, and of her father Daeghun.
"Daeghun!" she exclaimed. She spun. The room, which had been sparely decorated, was now furnished with a plain yet sturdy couch, and a set of arm chairs that she recognized from her childhood home. And, finally successful at conjuring, in one of them sat her father, smoking a pipe.
"Put that thing out, the children are going to be back any minute," she scolded automatically, not even realizing what she was saying until the words were already out of her mouth.
"Don't scold him like that," a sharp command came from the door. In the doorway stood her uncle Duncan, carrying a barrel of ale over one shoulder.
Good gods, he's the same age as I am, Adahni thought, or he looks it. Damned elves.
"It's not all that bad, my lemming," Gann said, "Look, it seems like you've dreamt us a party." Indeed, that did seem to be what Adahni's subconscious had had in mind, crisp catfish and cold corn cut from the cob and smothered with sour cream and spices and the entire barrel of Duncan's ale. By the time dream-Addie was sitting outside, smoking her own pipe, well out of the way of her sleeping daughter, she had forgotten entirely why she had felt so uncomfortable earlier in the day. She dumped the spent tobacco under the front stoop, popped some mint in her mouth to disguise her breath, and chewed it as she crept upstairs to her bedroom, where her husband was sitting, awake, in bed.
"See?" he said, "It's not such a bad life."
"Whatever are you talking about?" she asked.
She saw the ghost of a smile flicker across his face. She blew out the candle, and lay down next to him, putting an arm around him and kissing the back of his neck. There was something nagging at her, some niggling feeling that she was forgetting something important, but she put it from her mind.
"Gannayev!" the howl came from the corner of the room, just as Addie allowed her eyes to close, "How could you?!" The both of them sat bolt upright. In the corner of the room sat a strange woman, sobbing, her eyes red-rimmed. She was dressed like a Rashemi peasant, her dark hair tied up under a kerchief and her skirts billowing around her. Adahni instinctively reached for her blade. She didn't have one, of course, this Adahni was a good little Westharbor housewife. Oh, of course, she thought, with something like relief, This was all a fucking dream.
"Who is that yellow-eyed whore?" she demanded.
"Anya, what are you doing here?!" Gann exclaimed, getting out of bed.
"How did she get in?" Adahni asked, "Who is she?" All right, this has gone far enough, I think it's time to wake up now.
Gann walked up to the woman in the corner, and Adahni could see in the pale moonlight that he was entirely stark naked.
Yes, definitely time to wake up now.
She woke up, gasping, the cold sweat trickling down her back. She took one deep breath, then another. She looked around. It was the same old run down room in the same old rundown inn in Mulsantir. No matter how pleasant the dream, she thought, she hated the feeling of losing herself.
A pounding came on the door. She got up to answer it, seeing that Safiya was entirely dead to the world. On the other side stood Gann, naked to the waist. She instinctively blushed and tried not to make eye contact. He seized her under the chin and forced her to look into his eyes, and then drew her to him, and leaned forward to kiss her.
"No," she said, looking away so that his lips only caught the corner of her mouth, "It was only a dream."
He released her face and backed up. When she dared to look him in the eye, to her relief, he was smiling with – was it relief? - and then looked a bit sheepish. "I'm sorry," he said, "It was... very vivid." They were silent a moment, then he chuckled, "It's a comfort to me that you still have that sort of peace within you. That one such as you, who has lived a life of such turmoil, could still imagine a future like that"
She nodded, "I suppose it is a comfort."
"It makes me believe that maybe even I could find such a peace," he said.
"I'm sure you could," she said.
"Perhaps more incredible is that somehow I have, somewhere deep within me, the capacity to be a one-woman man," he said.
"Must be very, very deep," she said, "Who was the girl in the corner?"
He chuckled again.
"Would you two shut the fuck up?!" Safiya mumbled from her bed.
"Come on," she said, "Go back to bed. And stay out of my dreams, please. I've had quite enough for one night."
He nodded, smiling with his mouth but not his eyes, and went back to his room.